This Is Gospel
by SparkleMoose
Summary: Obito was fairly certain he should be dead. Instead he wakes up in a garishly decorated tent with people speaking gibberish around him. Needless to say, he was pretty pissed. Or that fic where Obito dies, wakes up, and becomes the Cloud Arcobaleno.
1. Ghosts

Obito Uchiha is dead.

Obito Uchiha is alive.

Both of the above statements are true, and for the second time in his life, Obito finds himself waking up when he knows he should have died.

(It makes him want to laugh, because really, what kind of luck does he have that makes death pass over him _twice?_ _)_

People are shuffling around him, moving around the room he is in. Soft humming reaches his ears from one of the people in the room and Obito almost twitches. Almost, because he is a trained shinobi and _shinobi don't_ _twitch_ _._

Even if they can't stand unneeded sounds.

(He hates useless sounds almost as much as he hates not knowing what is going on.)

Quickly assessing his condition, and finding nothing that would hinder him from escaping where ever the hell he is, Obito slowly opens his eyes.

To find himself staying at the roof of a tent.

Obito blinks, once, twice.

 _What the fuck?_ He thinks staring at the multicoloured fabric that hangs above him.

"What the fuck?" He finds himself saying out loud, staring in distaste at the swirled red and orange that make up the roof of the tent.

Why the fuck is he in a tent? He wonders, Konoha, hell, any shinobi village would have either killed him for what he had done or would have tried to hold him captive. Kakashi and his brats were _possibly_ the only ones that held any sympathy for him, but hell if they would be able to stop the will of five shinobi villages.

So either this is a genjutsu or someone had whisked him away again and placed him in a garishly decorated tent of all things.

Activating his Sharingan quickly dismisses the idea that he had been placed in a genjutsu. Which leaves option number two.

Obito decides then that he's going to kill whoever interrupted his trip to the after life and then possibly become a hermit.

He _really_ doesn't want to play brainwashed weapon of mass destruction again. So he sits up, startling the other two people in the tent that had been walking over to him. He knows his right eye is red, Sharingan spinning angrily and both of the other occupants of the room, a man and a woman, screech as they catch sight of his eye.

Obito can't blame them, the Sharingan is as threatening as it is beautiful. And judging by the fact he can actually see through his left eye Obito is willing to bet he still has Nagato's Rinnegan stuck in his left eye socket.

Obito grins, wild and dangerous, looking every bit the wanted murderer he was. The two in front of him shiver.

Good, Obito thinks, Fear inspires weakness. Weakness makes getting answers easier.

" _Where am I?"_ Obito demands. The two in front of him pale when he speaks, looking at each other with a mix of fear and confusion in their eyes.

The woman says something to him and Obito nearly snarls.

Don't these people speak Japanese?

The man looks at Obito curiously and Obito levels a glare at him, daring him to speak.

The man steps forward, cautious despite his curiosity, and says something in the same gibberish language that the woman was speaking.

Obito does snarl then, and the man takes several steps back.

What the fuck are they saying?

It could be a code, Obito thinks, but then why would they try to communicate with him in it? It makes no sense. Which must mean it's a different language then.

Obito groans, great, fucking great, he's been kidnapped by people who don't fucking speak the only language he knows.

Obito toys with the idea of just killing them all and leaving. But chances are that if the people in the tent with him don't speak Japanese then the others outside wouldn't either. It was entirely possible he was somewhere where no one spoke the only language he knows.

So his best bet is to play nice and hope they are willing to teach him how to speak whatever language they are talking in.

The woman flees the tent after a tense minute of silence between the three of them.

Obito doesn't expect her to come back.

The man looks at him, nervousness and curiosity warring on his face, eventually he says something to Obito that Obito doesn't understand because it's an entirely different language and Obito glares at him.

The man shuts up after that.

To Obito's surprise, the woman does come back, bringing with her a man that could have been mistaken for an Uchiha if it weren't for his garish pink hair.

Obito narrows his eyes when the man gives him a what would have been a comforting smile if Obito was still thirteen and _not_ a mass murderer.

As it is it just makes the man with pink hair seem suspicious to Obito.

" _Are you alright?"_ The man asks, and thank fuck, he's actually speaking a language Obito can understand.

" _Where am I?"_ Obito asks instead of answering the mans question, because fuck if Obito is going to let the man have more know more about him than he wants him to.

The man smiles again, but this time there is steel behind it. As if the man is finally realizing Obito is a threat.

" _Florence,"_ The man says, _"Italy."_ And Obito has no idea where the fuck those places are.

He tells the man as much and the man laughs.

" _It's not everyday you meet someone who doesn't know where Italy is,"_ The man muses, staring at Obito with open curiosity, _"What's your name young man?"_

Obito snorts, he hasn't been a young man in twenty years. He's thirty five for god's sake.

" _Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine,"_ Obito challenges, because he has always been a defiant little shit and of the man in front of him doesn't know who he is just by looking at Obito's face then it is entirely possible that he is somewhere outside the Elemental Nations.

Which could be a blessing in disguise but really Obito thinks it could lead to one big mess.

" _Nico,"_ The man says, and sure, it's an odd name but not as odd as some of the names Obito has heard over the years.

" _Obito,"_ Obito says, leaving his last name out purposely. He may have the Sharingan but considering what he has done Obito doesn't really think he should consider himself an Uchiha anymore.

" _Well Obito,"_ Nico says, _"Mind telling me why your eye is red?"_

" _Genetics,"_ Obito replies, letting his Sharingan fade away and taking a small amount of amusement from the shocked looks the others in the room give him.

Cocking his head to the side Obito grins.

" _What?"_ He asks, _"Never seen eyes do that before?"_

" _No,"_ Nico says, _"I can_ _'_ _t say I have."_ But the man looks excited, as if he has found something he can use.

Leering at Obito, because the only thing that the look on Nico's face can be called, Nico asks him a question that makes Obito want to laugh.

" _Obito,"_ Nico says, _"How would you like to join our circus?"_

* * *

Obito winds up joining a fucking circus.

He is not happy about it. But Nico had offered to teach him the language, Italian it was called, that the others were speaking. Apparently the circus recruited from all over so there were a variety of languages Obito could learn while he was there.

It was an opportunity Obito knew that he couldn't pass up. Especially when his suspicions were confirmed and it came to light that he was no where in the Elemental Nations.

So Obito joined the circus officially as one of the resident acrobats, because the one he was replacing had had an accident and wound up hospitalized.

Unofficially, he was the resident freak, turning his Sharingan on and keeping it on to attract customers.

If any of his clan saw him using the Sharingan the way he was using it they would rip his eyes out. Obito would let them.

Because seriously, fuck his life.


	2. Moving

By the time Obito has a solid grasp of the language spoken in the new dimension he's trapped in he's ready to leave the circus and the people in it behind. Those he works with are either skittish around him or look down on him and Obito would find it amusing if it wasn't so irritating.

Every time someone sneers at him it takes all of his self-restraint to not throw them into a genjutsu and leave them to rot.

It's not like anyone here knows how to get out of a genjutsu anyway. So Obito is ready to leave the circus and it's crew of morons behind but there's a problem.

The problem is that he, technically, doesn't exist in this world. There is no paper trail to track him by, no government documents with his name on it, he doesn't exist and that could cause problems if he wants to go legitimate or even find a place to live.

Or, Obito muses, it could work in his favour if he feels like becoming a criminal again. An assassin perhaps? No one would be able to trace him with his use of Kamui. Besides, Obito knows how to not leave any evidence behind. He wasn't an S-class criminal for nothing, no matter what Deidara thought.

Resorting to illegal acts feels like a betrayal though. Like he's betraying Naruto, the boy had beat some sense into him after all. It feels like he's betraying Minato-sensei and Kakashi all over again.

But it doesn't feel like such a big betrayal that he can't get over it. The three of them may have had faith in him till the end but that doesn't mean he has the same faith in himself.

He tried to take over the world after all, Obito is pretty sure there is no coming back from that.

He'll need papers if he wants to live anywhere besides the circus, but he's sure that once he gets started working for someone acquiring those papers through illegal means will be easy, or at least easier.

Obito snorts to himself, the age old saying of 'once you're in you're never out ' only rings too true in his mind.

But Obito still owes a debt to Nico for taking him in, so he stays in the circus. Working with others there and acting the freak.

After, if Obito is good at one thing, it's acting.

* * *

By the time Obito is ready to leave it's fall again and a year has passed since his arrival. During his time with the circus he had picked up more than a few things. His year in the circus had taught him how the general currency of the world worked, it taught him the geography of the world and a few of it's languages, and while Obito may not be fluent in most of them he can get by should he find himself in one of the countries where said languages are spoken.

The countries in this world were numerous, and most of them seemed to be governed by various democratic systems, something Obito hadn't heard of before he had wound up here. The first time he had heard of democracy he had snorted.

Sasuke would have liked the idea, he had thought, it would have gotten rid of the system of government that allowed Obito and Danzo to manipulate the system and get the Uchiha Clan killed after all.

His year in the circus has also taught him how to actually interact with people beyond making them want to kill him or killing him.

Obito likes to think his people skills have improved.

Nico calls him a dumbass and tells him they haven't. That's okay, Obito doesn't like Nico anyway.

To Obito it's obvious that the pink haired man knows something that Obito doesn't and it grates on his nerves. Obito isn't used to not being the one holding all the cards and it makes him want to kill Nico, makes him see Nico as a threat; and while the man is a threat in his own right, he walks like a killer after all, he couldn't possibly match, or even touch Obito, if Obito uses Kamui.

The thought offers Obito a bit of comfort, he's not entirely lost in this world.

Unless he manages to grab a map off someone before he leaves he will be though.

Obito sighs in his tent, he had gotten his own because everyone refused to room with him on account of his eyes, and making sure no was spying on him, and allows himself to use Kamui and throw the two suitcases stuffed full of clothes into his other dimension.

Sometimes, Obito jokingly referred to the space Kamui sent things to as The Void.

It'd be funnier if people knew he was referring to Kamui when he said that, sadly they don't.

Obito may be using the Sharingan in public to attract visitors to the circus but that doesn't mean he has given away all of his secrets.

Obito may be a circus freak, but he's still a weapon. He knows how to keep a secret.

He doesn't think anything is going to be able to make him stop being a weapon.

He doesn't think he wants to stop being one either.

After all, when it's all you've known for most of your life how do you stop?

* * *

Obito, his things securely in Kamui's dimension, makes his way through through the circus, very deliberately bumping into those who refuse to get out of his way.

He's leaving today, there's no reason for him to remain friendly with the others in the circus any longer.

By the time he gets to where Nico is Obito knows he's grinning like a madman.

He doesn't really care about that.

"Nico," Obito says, "I'm leaving." No thanks for everything just I'm leaving, plain and simple.

Nico raises an eyebrow.

"Are you?" He says, "That's surprising."

"Is it?" Obito challenges, "There's nothing for me here."

"I wouldn't say that, you make a fine acrobat."

Obito snorts.

"And even a better freak," He says snidely, "I'm leaving Nico, thanks for everything, but I'm gone." If the thank you sounds hollow neither mention it.

"And how do you plan on getting anywhere?"

Obito grins.

"I have my ways."

"I'm sure you do," Nico hums, "Tell you what, I'll let you go if you do one last thing for me."

Obito nearly snorts again, as if Nico could make him stay. But it's better to be underestimated than over estimated.

"What is it?"

Nico grins, fox like.

"This conversation is better had somewhere private, follow me.

* * *

Nico wants him to kill someone. The amount he's going to pay Obito for it is ridiculous.

"Not as high as it would have been," Nico says, "But I'm also giving you your freedom."

Obito nearly laughs.

He takes the job.

* * *

Obito finishes the job in Venice. The hit had been fairly simple, find a drug-dealer who crossed too many people and put an end to him.

So that's what Obito did.

Coincidentally, he also meets that fedora wearing bastard for the first time in Venice.

It's after his job and he's drinking wine in a bar, it tastes like shit, but after what Madara did to him Obito can barely taste anything so it's probably tastes less like shit than it should have.

Maybe if it tasted worse Obito wouldn't have finished it.

A man in a suit wearing a fedora with a yellow band around it slides into the seat beside him.

Obito nearly scowls.

"Strange eye you have there," The man comments, pointedly staring at the side of Obito's face that isn't scarred, the side that holds Nagato's eye, "Never seen anything like that before."

Obito laugh is more like a cackle than anything.

"And you won't see an eye like this again," He says, "Is that all you wanted?"

"Are you blind?"

"No," Obito says, "But I am a damn good shot."

The man's black eyebrow rises.

"Is that a threat?"

"Yes, now get lost."

"I'm just curious."

"And I'm had enough of your curiosity," Obito says, Obito doesn't like talking about his eyes, just another list of mistakes he had made, a reminder he should be dead, "Leave."

Surprisingly the man obeys the order and slides out of the chair he had been occupying.

"I'll go for now," The man says, "But in the meantime, you might want to invest in an eye-patch."

Obito does scowl this time.

Nonetheless, after he finishes his drink he goes and invests in an eye-patch using the money he got from Nico.

If he's going to play assassin, it wouldn't do to attract unwanted attention.


	3. Don't You Hear Me Howling

Life as a criminal is startlingly easy. The money is good, the trips inexpensive, mostly because of his ability to use Kamui to get to wherever he wants to go.

Kamui is as helpful as ever and while his chakra reserves are at an all time low Obito can't bring himself to care much for that. He still has enough to power his eyes, and considering how much of his fighting style relies on Kamui that is a good thing. Even if he's stuck using Academy level jutsu for everything else.

It also means that unless Obito is craving the feel of a real bed he doesn't have to pay for hotels. Most of the money he makes from various contracts going into an offshore account.

In other words, he's rich enough to live comfortable for the rest of his life.

That doesn't mean he's going to.

Obito has been a soldier for too much of his life to settle down. He doesn't know what he would do if he suddenly became a civilian. Paint? Become an author? Any option he thinks of sounds far too boring for Obito to even consider for long.

Obito is an Uchiha, and if Madara had taught him anything it's that Uchiha are built for death.

And Obito? Obito was made for it.

* * *

If there is one thing Obito has learned through his time in the Akatsuki it's that if you act the fool the more information people are willing to give you.

So Obito acts as he had in the circus, sells his services to others in the underworld guised as a man named Skull. He becomes known as a fool, as someone who will take any job no matter the situation. He becomes known as someone who doesn't ask questions, foolish he knows, as a criminal livelihood thrives on whatever information they can find.

Skull, Obito, asks for little information and winds up with a dead target anyway.

It's because of this he's asked to kill a child.

"Ahhhh," Obito-Skull says in a teasing tone that gives away none of his anger, "Why would you want a child dead?"

"He's a threat," The man, big and burly and reeking of cigar smoke says, "He's the heir to the Vongola. He needs to die and you seem like you're the only one who would take this job with no quarrels or bargaining."

"Is that so?" Obito says, raising an eyebrow, "Well then draw out the contract and I'll have it done."

The man grins, "I knew we made the right choice in hiring you."

The man pulls out a piece of paper before leaning against the table in the coffee shop they're in and signing his name on it.

The man pushes the pen and paper toward Obito.

Obito gives the man his sweetest smile even as Obito's eye flashes red.

Suddenly the man heaves over, clutching his chest.

"Help!" Obito calls out, putting on his Skull persona and letting his eyes become wet with tears, "I think he's having a heart attack!"

The coffeeshop descends into chaos.

Skull uses that opportunity to cast a henge, grab the contract and slip through the crowd and out onto the street.

He'll come find the morgue the body gets sent to and grab the man's head later.

* * *

Finding a box big enough to house a head is hardly difficult.

Find the morgue the body of his supposed employer is more so.

Still, Obito finds the body of the man that reeks of cigar smoke after knocking those who worked in the morgue out and promptly uses Kamui to detach his head.

The Vongola will have information and the head of a traitor soon enough.

(It's not that Obito particularly cares about the Mafia, but he draws a line in his apathy at letting children die.

Besides, if he gets to led the Vongola on a wild goose chase when they try to catch him, well, he has to have his fun somehow.)

* * *

Getting into the Vongola Mansion is stupidly easy Obito reflects, it's as though they are so confident in their abilities they forget to do the most basic security checks. All Obito had to do was henge into a guard. After that, it's child's play using Kamui to disappear into the Vongola Heads office and place the head and contract he hadn't signed on the man's desk.

Whistling to himself, Obito let's himself trip an alarm before using Kamui to disappear.

Later, Obito would regret making such a bold move when he is proclaimed an ally of the Vongola.

Later, he would curse himself for having such a soft heart when a pacifier around his neck feels like it's weighed down with the weight of everything he's ever done.

But that's later, right now he takes a certain amount of joy at outsmarting a the most powerful Mafia family.

* * *

Eventually, Obito finds out about Flames. He's eavesdropping on a conversation between his next target and his daughter when the girl mentions something about finding out her Flame Type.

Intrigued, because nothing captures an Uchiha's interest like the discussion of fire. Obito pays more attention.

Laughter rings out from the man Obito is supposed to kill.

"Our family is full of Rain's darling," the man says to his daughter, "Though I think you might be a Sun, your enthusiasm is as bright as one."

Obito can hear the pout in the girl's voice, "But Dad," she whines, "I wanna be a Cloud! Just like Lacy!"

"We'll get you an amethyst and test it out okay? But you need to remember, it takes determination and inner strength to pull out your Flames."

"Of course Daddy!" the girl says, "I have enough determination for everybody."

Hearing the conversation drift off to cakes and other desserts in the bakery the three of them are in Obito blinks.

The man fails face first into the pie he had been eating, Obito having had inserted a small blade into the brain stem using Kamui.

The girl screams.

Obito leaves.

* * *

Later, the girl finds and amethyst ring on her nightstand.

Later, Obito stares at the amethyst ring he had stolen from a jewelry store and remembers Kakashi. He remembers Rin and her smile, the way Minato-sensei believed in him no matter what. He remembers Naruto literally beating sense into him and he knows that all the people he's thinking of would be disappointed in his career path.

Especially since he's been given another chance.

Obito thinks it's too late to change his own life around. He's too used to killing, can't imagine his life without danger.

Obito clenches the hand holding the amethyst ring into a fist. Remembering how many times he's nearly died, remembering the fact he should be dead.

His fist ignites into purple flames.

Obito's grin is terrifying.

* * *

 **Next chapter Obito's decisions come back to bite him in the ass, people die, and Obito wants to murder everything.**


	4. Get Up Get Up Get Up

In hindsight, the fact it has taken Obito so long to activate his Flames is ridiculous. Now that he knows what to look for he can feel his Flames flickering throughout his body, and if he focuses enough he can drag them out and set anything on fire.

Sort of. Whether they burn or not is another matter. Obito had found out early in his trials that unless he concentrated enough his Flames would do nothing but leave the what he was trying to set on fire scorched and irritated.

So while his Flames were useful and far more interesting than he had expected he still preferred his now limited arsenal of jutsu's and his Sharingan. After all, no one expected for Obito to spit fire or for his eyes to turn red and for their attacks to phase through him.

Nobody can touch him, and nobody he encounters in a fight lives to tell anyone about his abilities.

Obito feels invincible, like nothing can touch him. It's a giddying feeling for someone all too aware of his own mortality. But here, in this world, dimension, whatever it is, no one has chakra, no one expects Obito's attacks and if they don't expect his attacks, then they can't counter them.

So when Obito gets a hired to attack a lab held by some outlaws he doesn't refuse despite the slim chance of his survival.

In hindsight, he should have thought his plan of attack through.

Storming the building through the front gates isn't very shinobi like after all.

* * *

The second time Obito dies is from a shot in the heart. He's on a hit, attacking a lab he had been staking out for the past few days when someone aims a bullet at his head at the same time somebody beside him aims a bullet at his heart.

The guns go off at the same time and even Obito doesn't have eyes on the back of his head. The bullet from the first gun goes off and passes through Obito's head harmlessly.

The second gun goes off and hits him in the heart.

Obito falls to the ground, dead.

* * *

The second time Obito comes back to life is to the feeling of fire licking his skin. Obito opens his eyes once again with the realization he should be dead and fire burning his skin. The normal flames around him hurt him. But his flames, his purple flames that require so much concentration and work to use are dancing around him, healing what should be life threatning burns.

(Fire to ash, is the Uchiha way.

It's a shame Obito has no plans to die like an Uchiha.)

Obito sits up, hears the startled gasps of those watching his supposed funeral pyre and turns toward them.

He grins.

Bloodthirsty and angry, he grins at those who had tried to kill them, and he moves.

He reappears behind two of the men, shoves his hands through their chests using Kamui and rips out their hearts.

He turns to the remaining one, the sound of the safety of a gun being taken off making his grin wider.

Obito turns to the remaining man and lets his Sharingan spin.

The man falls to the ground headless, and Obito continues on back to the lab he can see in the distance.

Once he's there, he wastes no time in splitting the place into different pieces, an angled line a quarter of the way to the top and two others on the down and he shoves the building and it's inhabitants into Kamui. The building is nothing more than a memory when he's done with it.

* * *

When Obito arrives in his hotel room using Kamui he wants a shower, so he takes one. Rinses the blood off his hands and torso, lets the water run down sore muscle as he thinks. Remembering the events of that day he lets his head fall against the wall and groans.

He can't die and he's-

Well. He's pissed about it. Not because he feels like he should die, or because he wants to, but because it means that he can be as reckless as he likes because he will come back. It means his sacrifice during the Fourth War was for nothing, it means that he had worried Rin and Kakashi and Minato for nothing when he was crushed by that boulder.

It means nothing; and Obito, Obito hates it.

Sighing to himself, and muttering more than a few curses under his breath as the water turns cold Obito shuts off the shower, grabs a towel, wraps it around himself, and steps out of the shower.

He promptly freezes in place when a shock of bright purple hair shows up in the mirror beside the shower.

Obito's brain short-circuits.

 _Why the fuck was his hair purple?_

Obito runs an eye over himself critically, his scars still make him hideous, the Rinnegan is still in one of his eye sockets but the other one-

The other eye, the eye that holds his Sharingan, is purple too.

Obito would like to think it was a coincidence that his eye and hair are the same color as his Flames.

Of course, Obito knows better than to believe in coincidences.

"Fuck," Obito swears, "Fuck."

He swears he can hear Fugaku having a heart attack in the after life as he observes Obito's new coloring.

* * *

 **Hi! I'm not dead? Or, I should say, this story isn't dead. It just took me a while to jumpstart the muse for this story again. WHOOPS. Anyway, thank you for all your reviews and faves and whatnot. They mean a lot to me and this chapter is a bit shorter than usual because I wrote it on my phone (NEVER AGAIN). But I hope you enjoyed this none the less and another chapter should be out next week? probably on Saturday or Friday because im gonna try and do weekly updates.**


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